Components and circuits comprised of semiconductor materials are known in the art. Such technology has been highly successful. For some applications, however, traditional semiconductor processing over-performs and represents unneeded form factors and capabilities at a commensurate additional cost. Traditional semiconductor processing also usually requires batch processing to achieve a reasonable cost per part because the fabrication facilities and equipment required are extremely expensive. Also, many semiconductor devices require a lengthy fabrication time and often require numerous chemicals, some of which are highly toxic and require special handling. These aspects of traditional semiconductor fabrication do not well support low data storage and data transmission rate applications and/or other less expensive needs.
Organic semiconductors have been proposed as an alternative to standard semiconductor paradigms. Organic semiconductors hold the potential for serial or continuous processing and/or otherwise relatively low cost manufacturing requirements. Unfortunately, to date, while working organic semiconductor devices have been demonstrated, the operating life of such devices tends towards extreme brevity. In some instances, failure occurs within an hour or two of fabrication. This results in many cases through interaction of the organic semiconductor material with active contaminants in the environment, including, for example, oxygen and water (H2O in both condensed and vaporous form). Such interaction eventually renders the organic material more conductive than semiconductive and this usually leads to device failure.
Present industry efforts emphasize searching for an organic semiconductor material that will withstand such environmental conditions. These efforts do not guarantee success, however, and, at a minimum, represent considerable expense and delay of commercialization of the technology.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention.